In his Academic Viewpoint column for the July-August 2016 issue of LP Magazine, Richard Hollinger, Ph.D., reveals a number of key findings from the study. For instance, overall shrink impact in the retail industry remains noteworthy:

“The impact of shrinkage on the retail industry continues to be sizeable. With an average shrink rate of 1.38 percent, this cost the overall US retail economy $45.2 billion in 2015. While the shrinkage percentage is identical to last year’s study, the dollar impact has increased due to the growth in retail sales. The good news is that the shrinkage percentage reported during the past two years is the lowest ever observed in the history of the NRSS.”

In the column, Hollinger also divulges the latest information about loss prevention budgets and hiring patterns:

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“LP budgets remain flat as a percentage of sales. Unfortunately, most retail executives are still not satisfied with the resources they are being given to fight the war against retail loss. Nevertheless, the total number of LP personnel per $1 billion in sales did increase slightly from 32.47 in 2014 to 37.5 in 2015. As expected, most of the employment additions were in exempt positions; non-exempt employees declined slightly.”

The survey was conducted in April in collaboration with the NRF. Eighty retailers participated in the study. NRF members can review the entire survey by logging into nrf.com/resources/retail-library/national-retail-security-survey-2016.

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